A Producers View on Solving Crusher Productivity Problems.

2014-06-18

Crushing material using a Haas Cone Crusher.

Phil Haas with one of the company trucks leaving a Haas Pit near Eau Claire, WI.

Loading material into a Haas Jaw Crusher.

Background.

Haas Sons, Inc. is an aggregate crushing and washing operation in Central Wisconsin. Phil Haas and his three brothers: Steve, Darrel and Gary run their father’s (Dave Haas) crushed rock, sand and gravel operation outside of Chippewa Falls, WI. Dave Haas started the business in Thorp WI in 1963.

Today, Haas Sons serve the Wisconsin Department of Transportation, various municipalities and many private contracts. Through their multiple locations in Central Wisconsin they produce 1.5 million tons of crushed and washed aggregate from three stationary and two portable plants. Additionally, they have five ready-mix plants that produce 160,000 yards of ready-mix, year round. The Haas brothers always work to reduce their change-outs and increase throughput. Keeping each of these units operating at their peak requires close attention and quality wear parts.

When Phil Haas took over as Vice President in 1994, one of the things he focused on was increased production and throughput for their crushers. However, as Phil stated, “There’s more to wear parts than keeping up with change-out and installation”. Phil soon realized he was not getting the value he needed from his jaws and cone crushers and decided to address the problem.

Unified 18% Mn High Performance Cones

Unified VSI Wear Table Parts

Unified Jaws

The Problem - Reviewed.

Later that same year, Haas Sons found improved productivity with Unified® Screening and Crushing. Phil had their crushers and liners reviewed by the Unified® team of specialists to see what improvements could be made. The Unified team found that even though Phil had been buying quality parts, there were specific design elements that were reducing overall efficiency. The tooth profiles of his jaw crushers were not performing and the crushing zones and cone liner profiles were all in need of adjustment.

Initially, Unified sent in Jim Georgantones from the ST. Paul, Minnesota office for an early performance review. After reviewing plant operations with Phil, Jim decided to contact Lynn Williams, Unified’s manganese specialist from the Unified, North Carolina office. Lynn’s specific engineering expertise for product design and manufacturing enabled Unified to quickly confirm and further diagnose the Hass operation.

Analysis & Recommendation.

Lynn examined the jaw dies and found the tooth profiles were holding back throughput and productivity. To address this, Unified designed a more aggressive tooth pattern for the Haas operation. They discovered the profiles on the cone liners showed room for improvement and re-designed the crushing zone to maximize throughput.

As a final optimization, Unified recommended replacing the manganese with Unified’s High-Performance – 18% Mn castings to improve wear life.

The Results.

According to Phil Haas: “All of these changes had a dramatic impact on our operation’s efficiency and improved the longevity of our parts. After Unified tweaked the problems and replaced our crusher parts with their High Performance - 18% manganese castings, our throughput increased 20%. Unified’s product redesigns, unit adjustments and on time delivery made substantial improvements to the overall performance of our operation.” Phil added…”We boosted our productivity and throughput significantly with solutions from Unified Screening & Crushing. Best of all, whenever we do need a change-out, the Unified 16 national locations get our parts on site and into production.”

Unified pride’s themselves in having the resources, the expertise and the quality products to optimize any operation for peak performance.